- (1.) Plaintiff/appellant is in second appeal against the judgements and decrees passed by the courts below whereby his suit for declaration with consequential relief of permanent injunction was dismissed by the trial court and the appeal filed by him was dismissed by the appellate court and the findings of the trial court were upheld by the appellate court.
(2.) Briefly noticed, the facts giving rise to the present second appeal are that the plaintiff/appellant filed a suit for declaration to the effect that he was legal,lawful and valid labour contractor for the supply of workers/labourers for arranging labour for the year commencing from 1 st June,2002 till 31 st March 2003 for the purpose of filling cane and bottles of the produce manufactured by defendant no.2- The Manager, Markfed Canneries, GT Road, Jalandhar. The plaintiff/appellant further sought declaration to the effect that in case due to the direct or indirect exorbitance of the defendants any loss is caused to the plaintiff, the defendants shall be responsible for compensation alongwith interest. A consequential relief of permanent injunction restraining the defendants from cancelling the contract based on the tender for May 2002 and restraining the defendants from withholding any payment for the labour supplied by the plaintiff for which purpose tender of the plaintiff was accepted, was also sought. It was alleged that defendant no.2 is Manager Markfed Canneries, Jalandhar and a tender was floated in the newspapers which was filled in by the plaintiff and was accepted by the defendant. Accordingly, the plaintiff started arranging labour for the specified purpose for the month of 1 st June 2002 onwards and fulfilled other conditions including deposit of security of Rs. One lac etc. It was further alleged that as per the conditions of the tender, the plaintiff was to deposit the proportionate share of provident fund and ESI of the engaged labour alongwith equal amount from his own pocket. Therefore, the plaintiff with the consent of the defendants and more specifically of the defendant no.2 took his own provident fund number and started depositing provident fund in respect of the engaged labour. After depositing provident fund, plaintiff entrusted the photocopies of the challan showing the deposit of provident fund of those engaged workers to defendant no.2. Similarly, it was alleged that ESI of the engaged workers was also deposited by the plaintiff with the Code number of defendant no.2 because ESI number was not supplied to the plaintiff. It was then alleged that defendant no.2 in order to achieve some ulterior motive had been unnecessarily harassing and instigating the engaged labour and that defendant no.2 had also put unlawful pressure on the plaintiff to provide details of names and addresses of the engaged labour with which he had no concern and only the provident fund and the ESI officials could raise objection, if any. It was alleged that defendant no.2 was trying to sabotage the contract and full payment for the month of July,August and September 2002 had not been made to the plaintiff. It was thus prayed that defendants be restrained from sabotaging the contract. It was further pleaded that defendants being corporate body no notice under Section 80 CPC was required to be served upon them.
(3.) Despite notice defendants 1 and 2 did not put in appearance and were proceeded against ex parte on 11.1.2005. However,defendant no.3 appeared and filed his written statement taking preliminary objections viz misjoinder and non-joinder of necessary parties, locus standi, jurisdiction. It was further alleged that the contract if any between the plaintiff and Markfed Canneries is determinable in a suit for specific performance and as such the defendants could not be sued for permanent injunction. On merits, it was denied that the plaintiff had complied with the terms and conditions as he had not furnished the security of 1 lac within time. It was also alleged that defendant had also failed to execute an agreement on a non-judicial stamp paper of Rs.15/- till date. It was then alleged that the plaintiff had failed to deposit the provident fund and ESI with concerned departments at prevalent rates.;